Photo: Serving from a Sherpa

Posted: Friday, September 14, 2007

By Courtesy of Staff sgt. Jon Hipp

Sgt. 1st Class Phillip Davis, right, puts a combat patch on Staff Sgt. Dermott Howard, center, on Aug. 1 in Balad, Iraq. Standing far left is Staff Sgt. Arturo Bautista. Davis, Howard and Bautista, flight engineers originally of the National Guard Black Hawk Aviation crew based in Juneau, volunteered to go to 207th Aviation Sherpa crew, which transports supplies in Iraq and Kuwait. The three soldiers went through intensive training to be certified flight engineers. Dermott and Arturo are not fulltime guardsmen and both took a leave of absence from their civilian careers to serve in this deployment.